What Charmed has taught me about storytelling

I want to start by saying that I have a love/hate relationship with the show Charmed. I never watched it when it was in its original run, but I caught reruns on TNT when waiting for Supernatural to come on. I remember thinking that the show was cool at first and then quickly growing bored with it. I can even remember a conversation that I had with one of my coworkers about it. They asked me why I didn't like the show and I thought it was more of a 'monster of the episode' show where the same thing happens every episode. It was one of those shows that were just entertaining enough for me to watch on a day when I didn't feel like thinking about much. I always wanted to like the show (since it clearly wanted to showcase strong women). I recently saw that Charmed was on netflix and thought to myself 'what the heck, I'll give it another chance'. I'm kind of glad that I did give it another chance because it taught me a lot about storytelling. One of the things I struggled with while writing Zombie Bite was character development and just development over time. Charmed has development, witches struggling to balance their personal wants and needs with what is expected of them. In almost every episode one of the sisters gets a new power or something happens to them that they have to explore. I really enjoyed seeing how that was handled. It wasn't like 'Prue got a new power and suddenly she knows what to do with it', it was more like Prue got a new power and she's struggling to control it. Anyway, Charmed has taught me a lot more than I would have thought it would upon the second viewing.

Tv adaptions that don't follow the book

This morning I turned on the tv to find that the season premiere of Bitten was on. I've talked about Bitten before, and I honestly do not like the series. I did watch a little of it, since I had read the second book and wondered if the second season would follow that story line. It didn't appear to, and that got me thinking about tv and movie adaptions that don't follow the story line that unfolds in the book. I don't really mind if the story in the book and the story that unfold on tv or a movie are the same as long as they don't change it up too much. I still want to know that what I'm watching is something from the same vein as what had been written. I want it to be similar enough to know that what I'm watching was inspired by the book or graphic novel of the same name. I think if it was my work being adapted I would enjoy seeing where others went with my work. There wouldn't be much point to watching a tv show or movie if you already knew what was going to happen, but there has to be a balance. It still has to resemble the original work enough for the fans, but be different enough to keep people interested.

Casual Friday: Tv shows

I'm trying to share more about myself, since I want to build a relationship with those who may be interested in reading my work. I'm still not really sure where to start, so I will start with my favorite tv shows. 

The Walking Dead: I, like most others, seem to find myself watching whenever a new episode is on. The last season dragged, and there really was no big bad, but I think I'll tune in next season and to the spin off!

Supernatural: Another show that's starting to drag for me, but I can't stop watching because I want to see where it goes. 

American Horror Story: I almost gave up on this show last season, but I want to see how the seasons are connected. 

IZombie: A fairly new tv show. I loved Veronica Mars, and I'm starting to love this. 

Awkward., Catfish, and Finding Carter: This mtv trio is the perfect boredom killer. 

My 'playlist'

A lot of authors post the play lists that they listened to while writing a book. I used to listen to music when writing, but for some reason I stopped. That doesn't mean that I write in silence, it just means I write to something different. I leave the tv on when I write. It's usually old episodes of the tv show face off, the show from syfy where they create monsters using movie make up. I would love to be able to do that, and the people on the show are extremely talented. I pick this show because it's a rerun. I'm not going to be interested in doing more than glancing at the tv from time to time. I don't have the longest of attention spans, in fact, that's why I stopped listening to music. Sometimes I can leave the tv on syfy original movies, since they don't usually interest me, but most of the time I'm writing to face off.